Summer 2008

A note from the Director

Dear Art Collector:

Our latest Small Treasures commission has arrived: A View of the Castle and the Capitol by Michael Arike. This enchanting view of the Smithsonian buildings as they shimmer with the fresh sunlight just after a rainy morning is the result of Ms. Arike’s day of sketching from the roof of the Smithsonian Castle.

A View of the Castle and the Capitol is a 3-color aquatint and measures 8” x 6”. This limited-edition of 50 is numbered and signed and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity from the Smithsonian. The print is available to Smithsonian Resident Members for $220 and to nonmembers for $320.

We invite you to see A View of the Castle and the Capitol as well as our entire collection of limited-edition prints in the Graphic Eloquence exhibition on the concourse level of the Ripley Center on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. or visit us online at www.ArtCollectorsProgram.org.

Happy Collecting!

Elizabeth Punsalan
Director, Art Collectors Program

April Gornik shared her artistic concepts and techniques in a lively interview conducted by education lecturer Dr. Eric Denker of the National Gallery of Art. The interview was part of the Art Collectors Program annual 'Meet the Artist' event held at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. One of the major contemporary American landscape artists, Gornik enchanted the audience as she expanded on her career.

Gornik explained that her huge landscapes devoid of people beg the viewer to inhabit her paintings. Without human images, there are no emotions implied by the artist—all feelings and references must be projected into the paintings by the viewer. Quoting her dealer, Renato Danese, Gornik said that “light is the protagonist” in all of her artwork. Skies, cloud formations, backlit trees and reflections on water make up part of her stable of imagery. The viewer is able to interact with the specificity of the work’s scale and material.

Gornik sometimes creates smaller paintings and prints, which she describes as “the size of one’s head,” giving the viewer a different kind of experience. “I want the viewer to have a somatic relationship with the work. In the case of the big paintings, I want them to be able to ‘enter’ the work, and in the case of the small paintings, the effect is that they would feel the intimacy of miniaturization in relation to them."

Gornik’s paintings normally take months to complete and resonate with colors that demand an emotional response. The pieces are heavily worked, but show little of the changes she makes because of their smooth surfaces. There is also a sense of economy in her careful composition that reflects weight, suspension, gravity, and a condensing of meaning, rather than a merely pictorial presence. Each work is an object of contemplation and has more than one meaning. As she likes to say, “Great art makes itself vulnerable to interpretation.”

Speaking about Blue Moonlight, the Art Collectors Program 2008 commission, Gornik said she decided to create the image as a lithograph with the aid of master printer Maurice Sanchez whom she called “one of the most inventive minds in printmaking today.” Sanchez is the head of Derriere l’Etoile Studio in New York. The technique employed is complex, starting with color separations drawn on five sheets of Mylar, which are then transferred to metal plates. After many trial proofs, Blue Moonlight became a 7-color print, necessary to achieve the lithograph’s rich, saturated color. Gornik said, “The print was incredibly difficult to produce to get the exact saturation and color balance I wanted, but it’s now one of my favorites.”

She noted that her current paintings contain more color than they used to, perhaps the result of her recent affection for Africa and its vast array of rich colors.

Educated in Nova Scotia, Canada, since 1978 Gornik has worked in New York City where she has a residence with her painter-husband, Eric Fischl. They currently live and work in a home and studio on Long Island.

A little planning can make a big difference for your heirs and your treasures.
Excerpts from BusinessWeek, Personal Finance
By Lynn O'Shaughnessy

If you're a collector…you need to do more than keep your valuables dusted or stored in climate-controlled rooms. Without careful planning, your heirs may face a substantial estate tax bill – whether they decide to keep the stuff or not. And if you want to unload your treasures while you're alive, the long-term capital-gains rate on collectibles is 28%. (The rate on stock gains is just 15%.) If you have a collection you love, here’s what you need to do:

FACE FACTS. Don’t delude yourself into thinking your kids will cherish what you spent years accumulating. When Michael Mendelsohn, president of Briddge Art Strategies Ltd. in Purchase, NY, asked his daughter which five pieces from his art collection she would most like to inherit, he was impressed that the then-19-year-old selected five of the most important works.

Mendelsohn was less pleased when he asked about his daughter’s reasoning. She wanted to make as much money as possible when she sold them. The rejection can sting, but it's better to know your loved ones’ true feelings about your collection so you can make the best decisions.

AVOID A FIRE SALE. If you don't develop a succession plan, your collection could ultimately be carved up at an auction or disappear into eBay’s maw. “A hastily arranged auction sale can lose up to 70% of the value of the collection,” says Mendelsohn, who wrote the book Life is Short, Art is Long: Maximizing Estate Planning Strategies for Collectors of Art, Antiques and Collectibles (Wealth Management Press, $24.95).

Norma Canelas-Roth and William Roth of Winter Haven, Fla., have been donating their artwork to museums for two decades. But they have seen other collections decimated because the owners never bothered to plan. At the moment, Canelas-Roth, an art historian, is particularly upset about the fate of a spectacular Chinese snuffbox collection that her close friends' children are trying to dump for quick cash. “The collection should go to a museum, but now it will be a bargain-basement sale. It’s very, very sad,” she says. With some philanthropic planning, she notes, the children could have received “far more money” than they will now. Her friends could have pursued one of several strategies, including donating the snuffboxes to charity and using the tax savings to buy life insurance that would have provided more money than the sale of the collection.

DON’T LOOK FOR ONE SOLUTION. Many collectors gravitate to museums and universities because the tax proposition looks unbeatable. When making gifts of art to these “related-use” charities, the donor is entitled to deduct the works’ fair-market value.

In cases where the gap between the cost basis and the current value is not large, you could give it to almost any institution you choose. That’s because if you donate art to a charity that’s not art-related, you receive a deduction based only on what you paid for the work. If you’re taking the nonrelated route, consider giving the art to one of the donor-advised funds run by community foundations. In that case, the work will be sold and you will be able to distribute the proceeds among many worthy causes.

CREATE A CATALOG. This isn’t for vanity. “It’s wise to have a catalog prepared well in advance of death to make sure the provenance is established and the history of the collection is included,” says Jenny McCall, chairman of the estates, trusts, and tax planning group at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, a law firm in New York and Silicon Valley. Producing this glossy document with color photographs, collectors’ recollections, and artist biographies can boost the value of the collection.

Lending art to museums may also enhance value. But it can put the works at risk. The Roths have had to restore prized pieces after dispatching them around the world. A valuable contemporary painting got wet sitting in a wooden crate at a German airport, sculptures have been damaged, and African masks came back from an 11-city tour with beads missing.

DON’T BE SNEAKY. Some collectors tell their children in advance who can take what valuables. When the parents die, the children carry their bequests out the door and hope the Internal Revenue Service never catches on.

Mendelsohn recalls a family that tried to avoid estate taxes by keeping three magnificent pieces of antique furniture under wraps. The two daughters sold their pieces to a New York dealer and each pocketed seven figures. But when the son tried to sell his through the same dealer, he learned it was a fake. The brother is now trying to wheedle a share of what his sisters got for their pieces. If he files suit against his siblings, there’s a good chance the IRS will learn of the dodge and audit the estate.

By Kathrin V. Halpern

Whether motivated by passion, or with an eye toward growth of an investment, most collectors say they savor the thrill of finding and the satisfaction of acquiring the pieces in their collection. It is less likely that they will be as enthusiastic about documenting their collection. Most of us spend so much time dealing with paperwork on a daily basis that the thought of doing so in conjunction with something that is supposed to be “fun” seems illogical. However, just a few steps can make the whole process simple and rewarding.

Why Keep Records?
Keeping records for a collection serves several purposes.

1. They help establish provenance, which can be critical in valuing and authenticating an object.
2. For those who simply love the objects they collect, keeping records is a good starting place when insuring a collection.
3. Even if you love a particular piece, it might become necessary to sell it. In that case, having documentation for the art will not only facilitate the sale, but may pinpoint a dealer who would be happy to act as a broker in arranging a sale for a past client.
4. As much as we might love our collections, we can’t take them with us. Records are hugely helpful to heirs or organizations to which one might donate or will art. Even if you can remember where, when, and for how much you acquired each piece, it doesn’t mean others will have access to this information unless you have documented it.

Set-up
Depending on the size and scope of a collection, the mechanics of keeping documentation can be more or less involved. An easy start is creating a “Collection Book” to keep your records together. A three-ring binder with sheet protectors for storing original receipts and divider tabs to separate material for each object is a good starting place. For those who are a little more tech-minded, using a simple database program and a scanner is another way to keep information. Digital record-keeping affords an added layer of protection. Records can be copied onto a travel-drive or CDs and stored in a safe location such as an off-site office or safe-deposit box. That way, should disaster ever strike, you have a backup of your records and can immediately file the necessary claims with law-enforcement or insurance agencies.

Whichever method you choose, pick an organizing strategy that works for you: alphabetical order by name of artist; location in your home(s)/office(s); year of purchase; place of purchase (these can also be cross-referenced, but that takes a bit more effort).

The idea is to make it as easy for yourself as possible – that way you’ll stick to it! Depending on the size of your collection, it might take a few hours or a weekend to set up your system. But once it’s in place, each time you make a new purchase, you’ll just add the information to your system, rather than letting it pile up and become a big project and chore.

What To Save?
Just how detailed your records are depends on the type of collection you are creating and your long-term goals.

The amount of research and record keeping you do for your collection will vary depending on personal interest and intentions. If you follow this advice, you’ll have organized records that can be readily accessed. By taking the time to research your art, you will develop a deeper appreciation for the objects in your collection and a reference source that could prove to be invaluable in the future.

The art world has been hard-hit with tales of online fraud and deceit. Claims of fraudulent sellers, buyers being duped of their money without delivery of the artwork, and delivery of fake art abound.

The Internet, like all other marketplaces, must be treated cautiously. If you decide to purchase artwork online, make sure of the following:

The following is a link to one of hundreds of articles that talk extensively about art fraud:
http://www.carrierartappraisals.com/images_common/carrier_article.pdf

Smithsonian American Art Museum

EXHIBITION Local Color: Washington Painting at Midcentury
July 4–October 13, 2008 SAAM

Explore the expressive possibilities of color in this special installation of 29 large-scale paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition includes Washington, D.C.-based artists Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Sam Gilliam, Jacob Kainen, and Alma Thomas, along with other exuberant colorists who created luminous, abstract paintings.

Conversation on Local Color
Saturday, August 23, 3:00 PM
Nan Tucker SAAM McEvoy Auditorium

Washington, D.C. is home to a community of painters who are fascinated with the expressive possibilities of color. Join artists Sam Gilliam and Paul Reed along with critic Benjamin Forgey for an informal conversation about inspiration, the creative process, and what abstract, exuberant paintings say about the city.

Hemphill Fine Arts

EXHIBITION Jacob Kainen, 1939–1949
June 5–July 26, 2008
1515 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC, 202-234-5601

The exhibition presents a selection of Jacob Kainen’s paintings, works on paper and etchings from 1939–1949. Much of the work from this period is characterized by his move from New York City to Washington, DC in 1942 and marks Kainen's shift into abstraction.

The Phillips Collection

EXHIBITION The Great American Epic: Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series
May 3–October 26, 2008

The complete 60-panel series, rarely seen in its entirely, will be on view until Oct. 26, 2008 exclusively at The Phillips Collection. Told through vivid patterns and colors, this masterpiece of narrative painting is the first ever produced on the great 20th-century exodus of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. The exhibition will take an in-depth look at Lawrence’s powerful interpretation of this significant moment in American history and examine how the story still resonates today.

Details can be found by clicking on the title of program or by visiting www.residentassociates.org.